


When the War Ends

by schweet_heart



Series: MASH Fic [1]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode Related, Episode Tag, M/M, Mental Illness, PTSD, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-30
Updated: 2012-04-30
Packaged: 2017-11-04 14:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schweet_heart/pseuds/schweet_heart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two years after the war ends, Hawkeye is waiting for BJ under the clock in Grand Central Station like he promised. But is the war ever really over?</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the War Ends

**Author's Note:**

> When I wrote this, I misremembered the quote from _Lt. Radar O'Reilly_ , so I thought it was two years instead of ten (which I think is what he actually says?). It worked better with the concept, anyway, so I kind of ran with it.

 

 

“If the war's over, meet me under the clock at Grand Central in [two] years. We'll go dancing.”

“I lead.”

“Then you buy.”

\-- Hawkeye and BJ, “ _ Lieutenant Radar O'Reilly” _




 

 

The trouble is, he thinks, you can take a man out of the war ( _ and please, please do _ ) but you can't take the war out of the man. Not after three years. Not even after one year, maybe. There's something about death and blood and violence – the sound of artillery in the night; the faces of the wounded; the stench of cordite and gunpowder and decay – there's something about war that doesn't  _ stop _ , even when it's over.

And now he's sitting here, two years home give or take, and the war is still here with him, under his skin and in his fingernails, as if the dirt of Korea is lodged there permanently, despite his attempts to scrub it off. Around him, people call to one another through the mass of bodies, meeting trains, buying gifts –  _ living _ . They pass through him like ghosts, superimposed on the past ( _ it's an airport in Korea, where he just missed Trapper, going away; where he just found BJ, coming in _ ). He thinks maybe he's forgotten _ how _ to just live anymore.

Two days ago, he was home in Crabapple Cove, treating patients. Korea – even though for the past two years it's been the sun on his face and the taste in his mouth; even though he wakes up there every morning and has to travel those ten thousand miles every day just to get home again at night – Korea and everything attached to Korea was tucked away in his mental basement, and he was – he  _ was _ doing a damn fine job of keeping it that way.

Except.

Except, of course, for when he looked at the calendar and saw what day it was.

Daniel Pierce hadn't asked why his son had developed a sudden desire to travel; just smiled and agreed that he could handle the clinic alone for a few days. He'd booked himself a flight and a hotel and left, traipsing across several states on the strength of a barely remembered conversation, most of which ( _ he's fairly sure _ ) had been in jest.

Why?

Maybe he really is crazy, he thinks. Maybe the war got into his blood and poisoned his brain. Maybe it's even now burrowing like a parasite into his thoughts, making him do and say irrational things.

And maybe sitting here, watching  _ that day _ come and go and nothing happen, knowing once and for all that it's  _ over _ , will mean he can finally put Korea back on the 38 th parallel where it belongs.

It's been almost twelve hours so far. He's barely moved. They never did agree on a time, just a place; never agreed on anything but the date and the clock, and barely those. It wasn't one of those things you sat down and seriously considered because back then you never thought the war would actually end. You saw yourself in ten years still sitting there in that olive drab oasis with the still and the blood and the world steadily destroying itself around you. In those days, you thought – he __ thought – that Armageddon would arrive before they called a truce. Although, in most of the ways that mattered, it already had.

Except.

Except he's not thinking about that, not now. Korea can just stay in its box and wait, though for liberation or execution he's no longer certain. Perhaps both, in a strange kind of way. He sips at the coffee he can't remember buying, not noticing the taste ( _ it's always terrible in Korea _ ) because he's so desperate to have something to do with his hands. By one thirty, he's started getting wary looks from security ( _ he's run a checkpoint again; he's been acting crazy so they put him under house arrest _ ) so he folds himself up, trying to look inconspicuous until he realizes that if he's not wholly present then the man he wants to see him might not see him either, and the irony of them missing each other after all this time might possibly kill him.

He's still trying to think of what to do with himself when he hears his name called and suddenly the war isn't a memory anymore but  _ right here _ , standing in front of him.

“Hawkeye? Hawk, is that you?”

It's a thousand moments in one moment; here, now, in the middle of a bustling station, two friends who haven't seen each other for two years ( _twenty-four months; one hundred and four weeks; seven hundred and four days – an eternity _ ) take their first look at each other outside of the distorted lens of war. There, then, across a dusty helicopter pad, two people who've been together two years ( _ twenty-four months; one hundred and four weeks; seven hundred and four days – a lifetime_) and aren't sure they'll ever see each other again take their last look at each other forever.

And Hawkeye is  _ there _ , in the dust, smelling the sweat, the thud of the chopper engine filling his ears so that even his racing heartbeat is drowned out. He's not sure if the arms that are suddenly encircling him are from then or now, belong to here or there, only that he's holding on for dear life, afraid that if he lets go he'll never find his way back.

 

\- + -

 

BJ-from-Mill-Valley is tanned, lean, happy. He's still sporting that ridiculous mustache. BJ-from-Korea is lined, lean, angry. Hawkeye feels a lurch of vertigo as here-BJ and there-BJ both look him straight in the eye and smile, but at least the war recedes a little. Enough that he can still pass for normal, at least for a while.

“You never write, you never phone – I thought you were gonna stand me up.”

“Well, you know me. Always like to keep them guessing.”

“You look good, Hawk. Really good.”

“Aw, you're just saying that.”

“No, I mean it.” And because it is inevitable; “Are you? Good, I mean.”

“Good? Me? I've never been good, I'm not about to start now.”

BJ keeps smiling, but it's strained. Hawkeye wonders why it's so hard just to tell him, about the nightmares and the blood and the war that won't stop, because this is BJ and surely he can tell BJ anything. Only why spoil the moment? There's a suitcase to carry and jokes to be made, and somehow they're back at his hotel without his having said anything other than  _ its-good-to-see-you _ and  _ how's-the-family _ .

“Erin's starting school soon,” BJ's whole face lights up. “She's already reading her own bedtime stories, can you believe it?”

“Of course I can believe it. I just hope she has Peg's looks to go with your brains.”

“Oh, she does. She's beautiful, Hawk.”

And because he's BJ, he produces several photographs of a bright-faced little girl with curly hair and a close facsimile of his own direct blue stare. Hawkeye makes the appropriate noises of admiration, but in the back of his head the war is starting up again, beginning with a smothered cry in the dark, and he pushes it away the way he did then; by jumping up and pouring them both a drink.

“It's not the way we used to make it, but it will do,” he says, raising his glass. “To family!”

“To old friends.”

“To the end of the war.”

“The end of all wars.”

They drink. For a few moments, then-BJ and then-Hawkeye are alone in the room, and this silence is a used silence; it travelled with them from Korea.

“I missed you,” BJ says suddenly.

“Beej – ”

“It's _okay_ , Hawk. I understand – I just...missed you, that's all.”

“I missed you too.”

He wants to add something about letters, about phone calls; only how do you explain that it's nearly impossible to write or call when you're not sure where you're calling from? Fortunately, BJ is just nodding, his face unreadable. For the first time, Hawkeye thinks that maybe he's not the only one who still has some traveling to do.

And maybe that's what makes him do it. Maybe he's so sick of the war, the way it continually places itself between him and the people he loves, that he'd do anything to break through that barrier again. Maybe it's because of the war and what it's done to his brain that he puts down his glass and reaches over and kisses BJ on the lips.

Except.

Except it's not the war that makes BJ kiss him back. It can't be, because here, now ( _and there, then_ ), everywhere, somehow, this is when the war finally ends.


End file.
